The sources of Islamic resentment against the West are complex and multi-faceted. Our lofty ideals about democracy were always viewed with suspicion when our actions in the region were to make common cause with oppressive kings and tyrants. The issue of Palestinian statehood and the perceived injustices of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank smolder in hearts throughout the umma, but there is little hope for real compromise when too many Palestinians cherish the dream of destroying their Israeli “peace partners” in detail rather than coming to any form of accomodation with their existence. Even if some way were found to bridge that gap, the al Qaeda jihadis that dream of re-establishing the caliphate seek also to undo the Spanish reconquista along the way – a goal that is probably not worth serious consideration in Spain.
So where are we now?
Tactically. In Iraq we have taken a battle that al Qaeda called a “must-win” and made them lose. When we leave – and leave we will – we will have left behind the nearest approximation to a liberal democracy that the region’s culture will currently support, while demonstrating our capacity to take a blow and return it severalfold. The rats are fleeing the sinking ship:
Al-Qaeda may be considering shifting its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, the top US commander in Iraq has said.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Gen David Petraeus said there was evidence that foreign fighters were being diverted away from Iraq…
He said there were signs that foreign fighters recruited by al-Qaeda to do battle in Iraq were being diverted to the largely ungoverned areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
While Jihad, inc. has not entirely abandoned making mayhem in Iraq, weak governments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan leaves the Pakistani FATA as a much more congenial place from whence to plan and execute terroristic savageries. The Iraqi people have seen the Qaeda vision up close and – ultimately choosing to believe that it could be defeated in an alliance of convenience with a coalition unwilling to cut and run – rejected it, opening up for themselves a brighter, more prosperous future. No matter how deeply the current of anti-westernism and anti-Americanism runs in the middle east, it has not escaped local notice that the Iraqi people – faced with the choice between violent and autocratically imposed sharia law and democratic self-determination informed by their cultural character chose the latter, often at hideous personal cost.
We have yet to convince a skeptical Afghan cohort of military aged males that we have both the will to win and the ability to do so without crossing too many of the cultural redlines of pashtunwalli – an ancient, pre-Islamic code of honor and revenge that governs tribal life on the frontier. Fingers are still being wet to the wind in Afghanistan: If the hard core members of taliban/al Qaeda alliance is seen by the Pashtun tribes and clans to be ascendant, many of them will fall in on side in a journeyman way, and the fighting there will continue to be bloody.
Operationally: In response, both presidential candidates are now talking about moving fresh forces to Afghanistan – forces freed from the Iraqi theater of operations by coalition and Iraqi successes. This exchange will be done in a deliberate fashion no matter who wins, since neither will want to be seen as responsible for “losing Iraq” after all the blood and treasure spilt there.
Strategically: Since we’re talking about savagery and the fates of nations, it’s useful to reflect on the fate of the nine citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran who have been sentenced to death by stoning there. From the outside looking in, it’s hard to know what’s worse: That there exists a country and system of “justice” that would enshrine a torturous form of capital punishment that uses rocks “not be large enough to kill the person immediately”, or the fact that there exists within that society private citizens not only willing but eager to help execute that sentence. Taken together, the whole of it simply beggars civilized belief.
A culture is little more than the aggregated beliefs and proclivities of its component members. It is a relatively straight line from the bearded rustic eying his former neighbor buried to her chest while sizing up his stones to a beady-eyed end-timer president rhapsodizing about imams in occultation and pursuing nuclear fuel cycles while entertaining notions about wiping whole nations off the map.
Culture change is inherently wrenching and the kind of change the region needs to join the modern world will not be imposed from without. But the West can help set the conditions for that change by vividly demonstrating the internal and external limits of the jihadist vision.
People often want to know how long this must go on, all of this fighting. It will go on until this dark vision has been defeated. It must.
interestingly enough, the anti-war crowd is beginning to shift its fires as well, focusing on A-stan and the lack of progress there. I would say that since 2003 we’ve been running an economy of force operation there while putting the main effort into Iraq. How much effect larger forces will have in A-stan remains to be seen. The popular thinking is that we’ll see a “surge” there now. But the theaters are very different places. What works in one won’t necessarily work in the other. Time will tell.
Lex,
I wish I had as much “faith” in Obama’s willingness to see Iraq through as you. Whether he wants to be the one to lose Iraq or not, he’s got some powerful donors that would love to see us lose (read Code Pink). When you add to that the fact that the Democratic party has painted itself into a corne with all of this “Iraq is a failure” stuff… well, I just don’t see him being willing to stick it out.
As far as how long will this fight go on; it was once said of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict that it will go on until they love their children more than they hate ours. Scary thought…
Jim C
I am afraid that the tactics of Alinskey, that work so well here, will not work at all in the pashtunwalli.
And it is far more than code pink that desires to shame the US with a defeat — all in a good cause, however, to sully the great thing that demon Bush might accomplish.
Edward
Islamic Resentment Against the West…
Neptunus Lex on progress in GWOT……
Re: “When we leave – and leave we will – we will have left behind the nearest approximation to a liberal democracy that the region’s culture will currently support”
I think that is a stretch-and there is still room for a strongman to come to power and there will not be a thing we can do about it. In fact I think that will be the natural progression-it will just be a matter of time. The good thing for the strongman is that he will have an American trained Army at his beck and call. That could be a good or a bad thing.
But a “beacon” for the rest of the region. Nope.
Iraq has a better government than it had before-but we will soon realize that it is not as closely aligned with American interests in the region as the neocons wanted you to believe.
And if they ever settle down and get the oil wealth that is out there waiting for them-they will be just as dysfunctional as their monarch led counterparts. With a rich minority and all of the hard labor being done by non Iraqis. Which is still not useful for the region in the long run.
Besides, it is not a question of winnng or losing in Iraq. Because there is more to Iraq’s situation than Al Queada. They have their own groups to deal with and there is still the over arching albatross of Islam to deal with. And those other players will keep Iraq from being an American surrogate-e.g. witness Al Malaki telling us its time to go home. That’s more for domestic consumption I believe and actually strengthens his hand in Iraq with the other factions.
Which-until that goes-there will be no real progress. Islam is what has got to go. And that can only be accomplished from within, not by external powers.
And none of this holds any of its authors responisble for the flawed plan they came up with to start with.
Islam is not going to go. It will take some many years to know if American intervention in Iraq will sow the seeds of permanent change in Iraq. If the democracy endures, then the Iraqi model may well in time turn the tables on theocracy in Iran. We shall see. We have bought them time and opportunity with American lives and treasure, because it is in our interest to change the course of events there. Regardless of who wins the election, it is the Iraqis who will determine their future within a few years. There are other examples of Islamic democracies, but none Arab. We shall see what they do with the opportunity.
Lex, I’m with you. “It must”. Painful as it may be, we’ve got to try even with 1/2 the popoulation ready to bury their heads in the sand…
Skippy,
It always the same. Initiate by begging to differ on a technical point. Morph it into something else and then finish up with a little Bush bashing and Monday morning QB’ing…ho hum…
BTW, welcome back.
Fundamentally, agree with your thesis on Islam. Lex is way too optimistic on that score like a lot of hopeful folks; it’s his nature. Perhaps Islam could morph itself into something the rest of us could live with? Fat chance I know. They may ultimetly get their “World Caliphate” but it won’t be in this world…That time may be coming faster than we think. 9-11 was unthinkable back in 2000, wasn’t it? A regional nuclear exchange ain’t that far fetched in 2008. Think on it before you shoot the messenger. Sad.
b2
B2,
Concur. Remember that we still have tens of thousands of troops in both Japan, Germany, and Korea.
We’ll be in Uraq for a long time as well.
As to the Dems, well, remember that they are the ones who condemned millions to death in SEA un irder to spite Nixon,
Obama well remembers what they did to that poor area of the world, and I am convinced he fully intends to see it happen in Iraq.
WE left South Vietnam as a secure, self-governing country with a stable government and a very competant armed force. All that they required was some dinancial support from the United States until they could get their own factories up and operating to supply their own military needs.
A US Cingress with a Vemocratic majority, not at all unlike the one we have today, decided to pull the pluf on those funds as a slap at Nicon. As a result, South Vietnam could not contuinue to support it’s own miliotary, and could not repel an invasion by the North.
ARVN pilots took off on CAS missions with only enough gas for a one-way trip. Troops fought to the lasr round, may with only 2 magazines to their name because ammunition was so precious. They died waiting for us to come and help them, and their families were butchered in the huidreds of thousands in order for the Democrats to gloat and pontificate about how wicked that war was.
I will bever forgive them for that, and neither should the world. Democrats are only interested in their own self-worth, and nothing else. They use the concepts of liberalism to mask a blackened and shriveled soul, decaying and overwrought with narccism and willful ignorance.
The horrific excesses of communism are well documented, but they are running with the democrats bipping at their heels for dirst place amongst historic villains.
Wj started the Civil War> Democrats. Who ended it? republicans. Who started WWI? A Democrat. WWII? A Democrat. the Bay of Pigs? A Democrat. Vietnam? A Democrat. Who ficed the problems in SEA? A Republican. Wgi ended the cold war? A Republican. Who restored Kuwait’s Sovereignity? A Republican. Who helped the Ayatollah to return to Iran? A democrat
Elections have consequences. I could five a tinker’s damn about the colour of a man’s skin. I care very much about the company he keeps, and the council he keeps. .
I lived through Vietnam and the Cold War and now my own son has taken the oath and will stand up for our Constitution.
He deserves better than what he will probably get.
Lex and other commenters … if Iraq holds to its promise of becoming a liberal democracy in the Mid-East, will it be the only one? I thought that Israel had been a democracy there since just after World War II. Am I missing something here?
Marianne
Marianne, you’re quite right of course. I should have been more precise and said the Arab middle east.
Over a billion Muslims. Some estimates put the number of hard core wahhabis at 100 million or so.
Over 900 million believers who do not necessarily accept the wahhabi version of Islam. However, one tenet that all Muslims adhere to is that it is wrong to fight against and kill another Muslim. Obviously, al Qaeda has violated that tenet in Iraq. There are a lot of second thoughts among moderate Muslims at what al Qaeda has been doing.
The wahhabis are shifting to Waziristan now because the resistance from the NATO troops has not been as formidable as in Iraq. They also recognize that Afghanistan is a much more difficult logistics problem for the West.
Four or five years from now Iraq may be reasonably stable, although there will always be wahhabi violence in Muslim countries until that brand of Islam is rejected for good. But Afghanistan, I fear, is going to be a really long war unless some way can be found to deny the haven of Waziristan to the wahhabs.
I know many do not believe Islam will or can moderate. The same was said about Christianity back in the 1500s. It wasn’t easy and a lot of blood was spilled, but eventually Christianity became a religion of reason and tolerance. If Islam does not follow that pattern, we are in for a really big war at some point down the road.
Bravo AW1 Tim, right on as usual. Amazing how things that happened not so long ago have drained down the memory hole for most people. The thought of seeing Obama, Pelosi and Reid next year gloat over hundreds of thousands of iraqi bodies as “Bush’s fault” sickens me.
True. But Islam has been essentially a barbaric religion since it began – with no end in sight. Stonings, amputations, honor killings – all happening today. At this point, I question their collective ability to move to the moderate side of their faith.
And if Jimmy J is right, and moderate Muslims indeed are starting to resent the violations of their “religion of peace” – then where are they? If it’s true that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and moderate, why aren’t we hearing their voices crying out in opposition?
There seems to be a concept here that Islam prevents a country from being a reasonable player on the world scene. How, then, do you account for Turkey?
re “How, then, do you account for Turkey?”
? A strong leader like Attaturk and his legacy, nothing else.
Unfortunetly, as his memory fades the Turks will fall into the morass, too..I hope not and I wouldn’t bet on it but there it is.
Your “reasonable” is a big gray area, too. Runs the gamut from “barely coexist” to stauch allies. Not much higher than “barely coexist” seems to be about the best we can hope for based on history, wouldn’t you say?
b2
Kris,in NE,
For a discussion of how wahhabism is playing in some parts of the Muslim world go over to the Belmont Club:
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/07/21/the-ethnic-and-the-religious/#more-73
We don’t hear much about these things. They’re all happening under the radar. In addition, most moderates in the Middle East don’t speak out because they don’t want to put a target on themselves. The wahhabs are violent if nothing else and that buys a lot of silence.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 07/21/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Pashtunwali has so far been al-Q’s umbrella because they’re guests, even though they’re lousy ones — they accompanied the Taliban into the tribal areas, and the Taliban are fellow Pashtuns. Pashtun honor demands that guests be protected so long as the guests don’t bring dishonor to the host.
The tough part will be to convince the tribes that the al-Q sheltering with them have dishonored themselves and their hosts by killing innocents and by using suicide as a tool to do so.
The tougher part is that now the Wahhabi are teaching that non-Wahhabi are not innocents, and that a suicider is a martyr so holy it doesn’t matter that his actions are prohibited by the Koran.
What it boils down to is that Wahhabism is going to have to be killed from the roots up, rather than by lopping off branches in the hope that it will eventually stop growing. The good news is that at least *some* of the more radical madrassas in Pakistan have started to move toward the moderate side.
B2,
I never used the W word once. But if the blame fits-he can wear it.
If there is a nuclear exchange in Asia it will come between India and Pakistan-not in the Arab world. India, who by the way, we just enhanced their nuclear capability.
Cap’n (Ret),
Since we’re talking about savagery and the fates of nations, it’s useful to reflect on the fate of the nine citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran who have been sentenced to death by stoning there.
Therein lies the rub. Entire cultures are based upon 7th Century Islamic concepts. By introducing the more modern culture of republican democracy, we introduce a major lever for cultural upheaval. Virtually every other culture whose legacy begins with Christianity or Judiaism, have ‘moved forward’ and away from the more barbaric aspects still common to Islam. How long will it be before those cultures join the modern world around them? What needs to be done to encourage the people view their religious teachings in something other than the narrow focus of shar’ia law?
In answer to these questions consider –
Germany, a European country transitioning from Monarchy to democratic anarchy to strong-man rule under National Socialism to Republican Democracy, took at least two (2) generations to reach their current level of participative government. South Korea, welcomes democracy, but imbued with their own cultural basis. Japan? Well Skippy is more prepared to voice his perspective.
The end result is the long road ahead to change an entire culture. As you say, “Leave we must” but have we inculcated enough knowledge and wisdom within the leadership to make the lessons stick?
Only time will tell. It will not likely occur in our lifetime.
b2,
Hint: If you want to hide your secret identity, don’t sign the posts with your “real name.”
Bruce Wayne
Lex: “Culture change is inherently wrenching and the kind of change the region needs to join the modern world will not be imposed from without. ”
John Henry Newman: “History teaches that barbarian nations are conquered from without and civilized nations are conquered from within.”
Of course we can’t fight prejudice (here or there) without changing the heart, but imho, assaults on the “head” will predispose the “heart” ala Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan.
On the Newman quote: Some will rightfully argue which one the west is becoming, but I’ve commited to the folks who desire to be around to argue the merits of that.
Nose,
Ooops. Screwed up again. Sorry Bruce.
Don’t you like Cat Woman, too? The Julie Newmar one of course, not the Kill Bill variety with the big thumbs.
Alfred, another Old Milwaukee, please!
b2